Soaring Community Consumer Warning

The scraping of W&W ads by Soaring Cafe was news to me and was quite bold of them to do. I just learned about it today from someone (and from Bill's post in another thread). I can understand W&W being upset with Soaring Cafe. But why include GliderSource then? Why include all other sites? Why not just the irritant, Soaring Cafe? Why risk (well, actually) irritating customers over nothing? Why not ask them to do this out of a gentleman's request vs. DEMANDING they do it (and right quick)? There is a big difference between a customer choosing to post their ads elsewhere and another website scraping them from you.

It frustrates me that W&W's uses a "silent agreement(?)" policy rather than simply publishing this requirement to the site. If W&W's is going to continue the exclusivity policy even though the irritant which caused the creation of the policy (assuming that is the case) has both personally and publicly stated they will "never do that again", why keep (often destructively) enforcing the policy?

If W&W was, for whatever new reason, going to keep the policy in place, why not be straight forward with everyone who views W&W's so there are no surprises for W&W's or their valued customers after the ad is posted?

I can see it as reasonable to offer "Free Ad's ;-)" (well, not really "free" because...) but only if you, Mr. Customer, agree to list your ad exclusively on the W&W's. Failure to comply may result in immediate deletion of said ad along with a 90 day sentence in the W&W dunce corner (not re-submission of your ad) ;-).

That would be fair and reasonable if W&W yields the highest traffic and sales results for sellers. Customers would have the choice to use W&W's under those terms or go with the other choices. Again, this policy is only fair IF the policy is clearly posted on page 1 of the Want Ads with the other policies and instructions and the customer agree's to it from the time of ad submission.

If W&W's continue's to move forward without publishing those terms on their site (or explaining it very clearly to customers and getting their agreement before publishing their ads on the site) there are going to be some more bumps on this path.

The practice of contacting customers (after finding an ad somewhere else policing the want ads universe) and demanding (your own customers) they remove the other ads or you're pulling them off W&W today... that's understandably upsetting. I'm just not sure how that experience could be considered just a bruised ego or "sour grapes." It's slightly rude at minimum, IMO. Especially if they were not made fully aware of the policy when submitting their ad.

Again, W&W can do what they want. They are the most popular site. Tim is not a bad person in any way, its simply a bad policy because it not on the up and up. I am arguing against this policy. All else is great. W&W offer's value, why not state any and all requirements for accessing that value openly. Why hide it? Why risk that leadership position over this long since past episode with Soaring Cafe?



On Wednesday, April 10, 2013 9:26:46 PM UTC-4, GC wrote:
On 11/04/2013 05:43, Don Johnstone wrote:



So let me see if I have this right, if you like someone they are

automatically right and if you dislike someone they are automatically

wrong?

Sometimes the best way of serving a friend is to advise them when they are

making a mistake.

If W&W were to state their policy re exclusive adverts publicly and Sean

continue with his attack I would support your view of his actions, until

then I have to concede he has a point, even if I agree with you that his

manner of making his point is somewhat less than polite.





No, Don. You don't have it right and you're distorting what I said. I

don't like bullying behaviour and that's the main reason I defended Tim.

I was able to defend Tim because I have had dealings with him which I

felt showed his 'business model', as you grandiosely call it, was not as

you describe.



Besides, this is not Walmart or Tesco we're talking about here. This is

a corner store in glidingland and it's run on a very personal basis.

Tim makes decisions as he goes along as to who he deals with and on what

basis - just like any corner store owner. To call it a 'policy' is too

grand by a country mile.



By now, all of us, including Sean are very well aware of how Tim runs

his business. I intend to continue to deal with him as it seems clear

most others on this forum will do. Sean's continuation with taunting ,

deriding and harassing Tim is simple bullying at this point.



I also think you're plain wrong. At this point, Tim's business is more

helped by Sean's incessant *******ry towards him than harmed by my mild

support.



GC

Another interesting factoid (someone pointed this out to me via email this morning):

---"The "best" part of Tim's advertising policy falls apart with the last ad on Page 6. Noting how on Page 1 he says "Not for other aircraft dealers, brokers, resellers or commercial vendors!" Then, at the tail end of the gliders for sale section is the following ad:

GLIDERS FOR IMMEDIATE DELIVERY IN SWEDEN
renewed 01-08-13
see http://www.cirrusflyg.com/ for complete list
Ingemar Sjöholm

Hmm. Looks a lot like a sailplane brokerage firm to me. I am really surprised nobody else has pointed this out."---

I wonder if W&W's will now remove this ad? Or has this key selling point of W&W's want ads changed?